The Steam Deck arrived with one goal in mind: inviting users to play Steam on a portable device. Just over two years after its launch, it has achieved much more than that. Linux's market share on the desktop arrived to 4.44% in mid-2024 — it is now slightly below that — a new all-time high. In addition, Steam on Linux It is also gradually increasing, and already exceeds 2% of the total teams.
A simple rule of three will tell us that one in every 50 users who play on Steam do so from Linux. If we take a look at the information provided on the official page, the preferred operating system is «Arch Linux», followed by Ubuntu 24.04 and Linux Mint 22 to close the podium. It should be noted that SteamOS is based on Arch Linux, so, according to Ockham's razor, it is more than likely that the Steam deck partly to blame for all this.
Steam on Linux is still a minority, but…
Steam's market share on Linux is in a bad position compared to the share of the pie that it retains. Windows, which together 7, 10 and 11 accounts for 96.56%Now, if we compare it to macOS (1.41%), Steam on Linux is above.
From this information, we can draw a few conclusions: Linux is attracting the attention of some gamers; those who buy a Mac do not do so to play games; and the majority of gamers prefer to play on Windows, probably on a desktop computer. As to what contribution devices like the Rog Ally/X, Legion Go and others make, we can only speculate.
The increase is slow, but it seems gradual. Last month it already reached 2% of the market share, and this month it has increased a little more. Microsoft should tremble.